Ryan Murphy confronted Cory Monteith over sobriety

“Glee” creator Ryan Murphy confronted Cory Monteith about his sobriety just weeks before he was found dead in a Canadian hotel room.

The 31-year-old actor died after taking a lethal combination of heroin and alcohol, just three months after he completed a stint in rehab.

Murphy has now revealed he was instrumental in persuading the star to stop work on the show and address his problems in a clinic. He tells Deadline.com, “As soon as I heard what was happening, when we had two episodes left to go, I brought him to my office where we had the intervention. He said he wanted to finish the rest of the season, and I said absolutely not. We were not going to put a stupid TV show before his sobriety. I assured him he was not fired, that his job was secure, that he would leave today. He went with a whimper and not a bang and it was very emotional… We had experts in the room and tried to let him know this was a disease. It was a tough and very emotional day and the last thing he said before he left was, ‘I want to get better.’ And I believed him.”

(Photo by Jonathan Leibson/WireImage)

Murphy insists he was satisfied Monteith was making good progress until several weeks ago when the actor and his girlfriend Lea Michele came to visit while he was working on a TV movie in Fire Island, N.Y., and the director asked him whether he was having problems again.

He adds, “The last couple of months, all indications were that he’d gone through the steps, he went to one place where it didn’t work and then he went to another, but there was still a lot of concern. A couple of weeks ago, he and Lea came to Fire Island where we were shooting ‘The Normal Heart,’ and I honestly couldn’t tell what was going on with him. He didn’t seem quite himself, but when I confronted him he claimed he was clean.”

Murphy goes on to praise Michele for her bravery as she dealt with her devastating loss: “It has been a very difficult rollercoaster ride, and all through that, and through the last week, Lea has been the most brave and courageous person I’ve ever met. She has dealt with an impossible situation with more humanity than you could ever hope for.”

Murphy has also detailed how he plans to address Monteith’s loss in the new series of Glee, revealing two Beatles-themed episodes will be filmed next month, and they will also record a tribute show for his character, Finn Hudson, before taking a hiatus.

He tells E! News, “We will begin shooting in late August the two shows we had already written, so that people can physically go back to work. We will then do an episode that will deal with the death of Finn’s character and follow that with a long hiatus. I don’t know exactly when we will come back, and we are trying our best with this attempt at damage control. We are planning a memorial for the cast and crew sometime this week on the Paramount lot.”

Murphy also reveals he had to consider axing the show in the aftermath of the tragedy, but came up with a new plan after discussing the matter with Monteith’s co-star and real life girlfriend Lea Michele.

He adds that the storyline will be the most difficult he has ever written: “Lea blessed every decision. I told her even I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to write about the death of someone I love.”